Posted on 01/12/2005 11:03:20 PM PST by neverdem
January 13, 2005
To the Editor:
"It's Time to Spray DDT," by Nicholas D. Kristof (column, Jan. 8), highlights the devastating impact of malaria and the fact that DDT is highly effective in saving lives. Unless donor agencies change their stance on DDT, and indeed on the use of all insecticides in malaria control, malaria will continue to claim more than a million lives a year.
The Ugandan Ministry of Health announced that it intended to use DDT in carefully controlled spraying programs as one of many tools to control malaria. The choice of DDT is a good one. World Health Organization data show that during the early 1960's DDT spraying in Uganda cut malaria cases dramatically.
Yet to date the Ugandan government has not been able to spray, largely because of a lack of support from the donor community. There have also been misguided, and malicious, reports that Europe would reject all agricultural imports from Uganda if it sprayed tiny amounts of the insecticide inside houses.
I hope that Mr. Kristof's article will help to change donor agency policies and save lives.
Richard Tren Director, Africa Fighting Malaria Sandton, South Africa, Jan. 9, 2005
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To the Editor:
Nouveau enthusiasts of DDT - including Nicholas D. Kristof (column, Jan. 8), the World Health Organization and some conservationists - are ignoring its history and arguing that it is necessary for the health of millions otherwise vulnerable to malaria.
DDT was banned because its persistence and solubility in fats assure that there is no safe way to use it to avoid its accumulation and effects on fish, birds and people.
Its chronic use as an insecticide causes the evolution of resistant strains of insects. The resistance is met with heavier applications that simply compound the problems.
DDT is an example of a magnificent piece of technology whose great advantages as an insecticide are the very qualities that make it an unacceptably persistent poison subject to concentration factors of hundreds of thousandfold in the environment with devastating effects.
DDT's use and management are neither cause nor cure of malaria, despite the cries from those who should know better.
George M. Woodwell Paul R. Ehrlich Woods Hole, Mass., Jan. 11, 2005 The writers are, respectively, director of the Woods Hole Research Center and a professor of biology at Stanford University.
Persistence is one of the chief BENEFITS of DDT; a single spraying lasts for months. Nothing else is close to being as effective or inexpensive. Moreover, ALL of the various claims of harm to birds and fish turned out to be BS and that is well known.
IIRC, you posted the first link to the original Op-Ed thread, "It's time to use DDT". The second link isn't working.
Correction, the first thread was "It's time to spray DDT".
Ehrlich is proof positive that if you are a liberal you can be wrong your entire life and no one cares.
If birds eat bugs, and DDT results in less bugs, doesn't that hurt birds?
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The ONLY problems with DDT arose from using it as an area insecticide for crops. Using it to eradicate mosquitos and protect human populations is harmless.
BTTT!!!!!!!
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